Lawrence T. Lydick; U.S. District Judge

U.S. District Judge Lawrence T. Lydick, who once sentenced the late billionaire industrialist Armand Hammer for making illegal campaign contributions, has died. He was 79.

Lydick died in Laguna Beach where he had semiretired. A member of the federal court’s Central District headquartered in Los Angeles, Lydick had sat in its Santa Ana branch since taking senior status with a reduced caseload.

When Lydick refused to conduct court in Hammer’s hospital room, Hammer appeared before him March 23, 1976, in a wheelchair and connected to heart-monitoring equipment. Although the stern judge had forced Hammer to come to court, Lydick made it clear that he had no intention of jailing an elderly, obviously ill man.

The then 77-year-old Hammer was fined the maximum $3,000 and placed on one year’s probation for illegally contributing and concealing $54,000 to the 1972 reelection campaign of President Richard Nixon. Ironically, Nixon had appointed Lydick to the bench in 1971.

A week after the sentencing, the man who hadn’t been thought well enough to appear in court was back at work at Occidental Petroleum. Hammer lived past 90.

Lydick’s other cases included a discrimination lawsuit that helped force the integration of the Los Angeles Fire Department and the trial of Leonard Pelletier in connection with the Native American dispute at Wounded Knee. Lydick also sentenced Betsy Bloomingdale for violating customs laws with some fashion purchases abroad.

Born and reared in San Diego, Lydick was educated at Stanford University. He also attended the University of Freiburg in Germany and did postgraduate work at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

During World War II, he handled regional disputes for the National War Labor Board and served in the Naval Reserve, earning three combat stars and the rank of lieutenant.

He worked for U.S. Grant Export-Import of Los Angeles for two years and in 1948 joined the law firm of Adams, Duque & Hazeltine, where he eventually headed the litigation department and practiced law for 23 years.

Known as a no-nonsense, hard-working and meticulous taskmaster as a lawyer and judge, Lydick was a very private man. He routinely refused to be interviewed or photographed.

He is survived by his wife, the former Martha Irene Martinez of Laguna Beach, and three children, Lawrence T. Lydick Jr. of Aliso Viejo, Calif.; Gretta Lydick Kolbus of Bend, Ore., and Chip Stewart Lydick of Las Vegas.

A public memorial service is scheduled at 10 a.m. Jan. 3, in the U.S. District Court Santa Ana Courthouse, 751 W. Santa Ana Blvd., Santa Ana. The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the Friends of the Laguna Beach Library Additional Day Fund, P.O. Box 36, Laguna Beach, Calif. 92625.